This invention relates to a chopping apparatus or chopper, that may be used to process wire rope, tubing, elongate scrap pieces, and similar material, to cut the material into segments or pieces of predetermined length. With the material cut up or chopped into short pieces of predetermined length, the material is more easily handled for recycling or reprocessing purposes. For instance, the machine might be used to cut up wire rope to produce pieces three to four inches in length. These pieces are easily collected in barrels or other containers for disposal purposes.
A general object of the invention is to provide an improved chopper with a unique cutting knife and anvil construction for producing the chopping of material. Following the invention, a rapid cutting action results with reduced wear on knife and anvil cutting edges.
Another general object is to provide an improved chopper which is adjustable in operation, in that the length of the pieces cut by the chopper may be changed to fit the needs of the particular user.
An object related to the above is the provision of a chopper which features a pair of opposed feed rolls yieldably biased toward each other to accommodate different widths of material. Each of the rolls is rotated intermittently by an intermittently actuated motor. Cutting of material fed forwardly by the feed rolls is performed by an intermittently operated cutter. By changing the length of the time periods during which the drive motors for the rolls operate, the length of material advanced by the rolls is adjusted, and this in turn changes the length of the material cut off by the cutter.
Another object is to provide an improved chopper with a construction for feed rolls in the chopper capable of exerting a pulling force of considerable magnitude on any material fed the machine. This is important in processing wire rope, for instance, where it frequently is necessary to pull a piece of rope out from a tangled mass of other material for processing purposes.
A related object is to provide a chopper which has a pair of opposed feed rolls with rolls being displaceable from each other to accommodate the passage therebetween of different width material but yieldably biased toward each other to exert a firm gripping pressure on the material. While the feed rolls are relatively displaceable, they are nevertheless driven in timed relation by providing a separate drive motor such, as a hydraulic motor, for each roll, with control means coordinating the operation of the motor for one roll with the operation of the motor for the other roll.
An additional feature and object of the invention is to provide a chopper which is relatively maintenance free, and which is easily disassembled whenever repair or replacement of parts is necessary.
In a preferred embodiment of the apparatus described herein, a mobile unit is disclosed, with the chopper, controls, and a source of power being all supported on a mobile frame such as a trailer frame. This enables the equipment to be wheeled to the location desired, and after clean up removed from the site involved.